


Broken Edges, Vibrant Colors

by nothlits



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Autistic Character, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 04:10:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18380684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nothlits/pseuds/nothlits
Summary: “Inari,” Futaba's voice surprised him and he stilled. “You're autistic, right?”What an odd question. He'd never been asked that before. He'd never considered it to be a possibility, and he wasn't even sure what it meant.





	Broken Edges, Vibrant Colors

**Author's Note:**

> Happy autism acceptance month!
> 
> This is largely unedited, as I wrote it just for myself. Autistic fic and art mean a whole lot to me, and I know that's true of others as well. Despite the sad start, this does have a very happy and fluffy ending, it's not angst by any means.

Yusuke didn't always feel different. It wasn't until he was entering middle school that he realized that others seemed to treat him differently. Up until then, he had lived in blind ignorance, too absorbed into his own mind to think about what anyone else might be thinking. But once he started becoming aware, it became painfully obvious. 

His classmates would stare and whisper and he'd suddenly realize he had been rocking in his seat or humming to himself. The embarrassment would make him stop, but it was only a matter of time until he automatically started up again. He would internally scold himself each time, but his brain seemed to be inherently wired to go against his commands. 

He wasn't shy. He would talk openly to anyone who would listen. Despite this, he still found himself with no friends. It wasn't until the end of his middle school education that he caught on that his classmates were mocking him for the way he spoke. They said he used strange words, that he rambled, that he dominated conversations to talk about things no one cared about. He didn't laugh at the right jokes. It filled him with burning shame, and he would never forget how he felt crying alone in his room after school over the humiliation. He couldn't even open his mouth to speak without doing something incorrectly. He began to hate himself deeply for his inability to act like the others. 

He became reclusive, quiet, the weird kid who was always fidgeting, always drawing by himself instead of hanging out with friends like everyone else in his class did. He resigned himself to being alone. Personal connection didn't seem like a possibility for him.

Madarame had told him that he was simply unique. He had talent and individuality that others would always be envious of. There was nothing wrong with him, it was everyone else who was wrong. That was just what it was like for people who were gifted. It didn't feel like a gift to him at all, but a curse. Still, he tried to embrace his differences. 

He wanted to embrace his rigid posture, his verbose but awkward speech, his fidgets, his inability to read a room, his slowness in catching on to what was obvious to others, his missing the bigger picture for the details, his being prone to going to pieces at the smallest inconvenience. But it felt like too many broken edges for anyone to embrace. If he was a painting, he would have been sloppy, with clashing, ugly colors and no sense of harmony. He was no work of art. Of that he was certain. 

It was by a complete fluke that the always weird, awkward Yusuke Kitagawa found himself in the midst of a blooming group of friends. He hadn't meant for it to happen. For once, he hadn't been trying to blend in or impress anyone. It had just happened, in the chaotic whirlwind his life had suddenly become that year. When he had needed the support the most, they had appeared around him. And they had all subsequently gone through Hell together. He hadn't imagined friendship to be quite so dangerous, but he wouldn't have traded any of them for the world. 

He kept expecting himself to magically learn to love himself. To be able to finally embrace all of those flaws masquerading as a gift. But each time he said something that wasn't well-received in a text and got talked over or had his wording questioned or laughed at, each time he got called an eccentric, he felt that same white-hot shame he had felt for years burning in his gut. He knew none of them hated him. They were his friends. But it became clear that at least some of them, at least some of the time, still saw him as a freak. He wasn't like the rest of them and he feared he never would be. 

Futaba had been the first person to shed some light on his predicament. She would never know how grateful he was.

They had been sitting alone together inside Leblanc, waiting for Ren to come home from some part-time job. Sojiro had already gone home for the night, so it left them to each other's company. They were both looking at their respective phones, sitting across from each other at a booth in comfortable silence. Futaba was perched with her knees pulled up to her chest, rocking slightly. Yusuke was a bit hunched over, a hand brought up to his chin and held there in a way that felt comfortable to him, but which appeared rigid and awkward. Without realizing it, he had begun rocking as well, though his movement was less subtle than Futaba's. She noticed and watched him silently over her phone. 

“Inari,” her voice surprised him and he stilled. “You're autistic, right?” 

What an odd question. He'd never been asked that before. He'd never considered it to be a possibility, and he wasn't even sure what it meant. He searched his mind for an answer, but evidently was taking too long to find one, and Futaba spoke again, disrupting him.

“I just thought you were, cuz, like,” she gestured a hand vaguely in his direction, wiggling it a little. “You know! You're like… like me.” 

“I'm like you?” he looked her over, unsure what she meant. 

“Yeah, you do the same rocking thing and you only care about like two things and you do the thing where you pull your arms up like this,” she pulled her arms to her chest with her wrists hanging limp to demonstrate. “when we go somewhere with a lot of people. And you talk weird. And you don't get it when people make jokes a lot. And everyone else has to explain them to you and then I don't feel like I'm the stupid one cuz I didn't get it either.” 

He pondered her words silently, and realized he had begun rocking slowly again. He didn't bother to stop himself. It was just himself and Futaba here, and she had no reason to berate him for it. Besides, it helped him think. 

The sound of the door unlocking prevented him from answering, or putting much more thought into the topic. His attention was on Ren for the rest of the night, and it wasn't until he returned home the next morning that he was able to devote some time to what would be a life-altering revelation.

He put weeks into tirelessly combing over information online. What he found was astounding. Difficulties in communication and socialization, obsessive interests, repetitive behaviors, strange posture. It was like finding an answer to what he had assumed was an insurmountable personal failing. He shed tears over it more than once, some good and some bad. He still felt embarrassed, flawed. 

He told no one about his discovery for fear of being treated differently. Until now, he had been able to be passed off as just weird, the odd one in his group of friends. He didn't want to deal with telling them there was truly something clinically different about his brain. When it didn't feel comforting, it just felt so othering. He had been othered his whole life, only just now having settled into a place where he felt the least bit accepted. Ruining it was out of the question.

Having a tangible list of symptoms gave him guidelines to understand his own behavior, but it also made him hyperaware. Each time he found himself moving his hands in public, or talking too much about one thing, or standing or sitting awkwardly, he would reprimand himself silently and try to emulate someone else's behavior instead, telling himself just be normal. In some ways, it felt even more painful now that he knew there wasn't anything to be done about it.

His preoccupation with getting lost in the workings of his own mind in a futile attempt to understand it was negatively affecting his art. Nothing he made came out the way it should have. Nothing felt genuine enough for his liking anymore. He felt he had truly lost touch with himself. The combination of a lack of artistic productivity and an overwhelming amount of self hatred had him on a one-way track to a complete breakdown.

It was Ren who pulled him out of it.

They had been spending more time alone together. Yusuke had somewhat adjusted to existing socially in a group setting, but one-on-one socialization was still largely foreign territory to him. Each interaction felt like a test he had never been given the material for. He had to feel it out as he went. But Ren was patient, forgiving of his fumbles. It felt nice.

They went out for a meal together often. Yusuke always had something safe-- chicken ramen with no crisp vegetables to disrupt the soft texture of the noodles, a burger with only tomato. Ren never made any comments about his dietary habits or the way he always ate his meals in the exact same regular routine. He didn't berate him for how distraught he became when his order came out wrong and he bit into an onion by surprise, sending him into near hysterics. He only brought him some water and, after asking for permission, removed the offending items from his food for him, showing it to him so he'd see it was safe now. 

It was a touching gesture. If Yusuke had been more grounded at the time, he would have thanked him profusely. Instead, he just felt embarrassed and it took him hours to recover from what must have seemed like such a trivial thing. He stayed tense and cautious for the rest of that evening.

His embarrassment and guilt ate at him when he tried to sleep that night and he found himself unable to rest until he had communicated his shame and gratitude to Ren. He settled for a text.

‘Ren, I simply cannot thank you enough for your patience and kindness to me, today and all other days. I am aware that at times I can be difficult to deal with and embarrassing to be seen with, and for that I would like to apologize. Though we are friends, I would like you to know that you are under no obligation to indulge my rather strange way of being.’

He set his phone down and sighed to himself. Apologizing for his existence was nothing new. He had been doing it for years now. Yet, it still felt humiliating every time. Knowing that he was an inconvenience to people who he cared for ached like nothing else. Until now, he hadn't ever had someone in his life who was willing to go out of their way for him the way Ren had, and somehow it felt worse to be a burden than to have no one at all.

He was dragged out of his thoughts by the feeling of his phone buzzing and he lifted it up to see a text back from Ren. He hadn't expected him to still be awake. It was late.

'You are not and have never been embarrassing or too much. I do the things I do for you because I want to and I care about you.’

He felt tears welling up in his eyes and he set his phone down again. He was overwhelmed by an emotion that he couldn't name. He wasn't sure if it was good or bad, only that it was far too much and it had boiled over and out in the form of hot tears and quiet sobs. What little energy he had left was drained that way and he quickly fell asleep. 

Ren never brought up his incident with food again and they continued spending more and more time together. They would take trips to the planetarium some days when they grew tired of hanging out in the attic at Leblanc or walking around people-watching in Shibuya. The displays of stars and planets was soothing to Yusuke and though he had been there countless times, he was always mesmerized just the same and could spend hours looking over every minute detail the exhibits had to offer. No painting he created would ever capture the immeasurable beauty of the universe. That was for certain.

Ren once called him his own personal tour guide. Yusuke was full of information about most, if not all, of the exhibits in the facility and could tell Ren just about anything he might want to know about various constellations and galaxies. He tried not to get carried away with his explanations, some of which he worried he must have already told Ren before, but sometimes he couldn't help himself.

During one particularly passionate monologue about the mythology of the constellations Perseus and Andromeda, he realized he had been speaking uninterrupted for several minutes and abruptly trailed off, instantly embarrassed by his own enthusiastic rambling. He looked over at Ren, expecting him to be sighing in frustration or looking at his phone. But he wasn't. He was smiling, attentive, listening eagerly to every word Yusuke said. It wasn't a pitying smile either. It looked to be true, genuine happiness. Yusuke didn't know what to make of it.

“I… My apologies. I didn't mean to make you listen to... all of that.” He mumbled, averting his eyes and crossing his arms tight across his chest for security. 

“It's okay, it was interesting.” Ren smiled encouragingly at him. “I want to hear how it ends.” 

“Are you certain? It can't possibly be much fun to listen to me ramble on and on about such things.” He barely looked at Ren out of the corner of his eye, fixating on the way his hair curled around the rim of his glasses instead of looking at his face. 

“I like hearing you talk about whatever you want to talk about. It makes you happy so it... makes me happy too.” He almost sounded embarrassed about something himself. Was Yusuke missing something here? 

He dropped one arm but kept the other close to his chest. There was a few moments of silence and then he felt Ren's hand brush his own at his side and clasp them together, palm to palm.

“Tell me how it ends.” He squeezed Yusuke's hand gently.

Yusuke took a moment to gather his thoughts that had been thrown into complete chaos by the warmth of Ren's hand in his and the implications that this touch held, but he was able to pick his story back up and tell it to the end, even with some stumbling from nerves. Ren held his hand for the rest of the visit.

Yusuke's mind was consumed with that simple affectionate gesture for days. He couldn't recall anyone ever holding his hand before. In middle school, his classmates had avoided touching him at all costs. Even an accidental bump of shoulders was recoiled from in apparent disgust. But Ren hadn't been disgusted at all. He had looked happy, if nervous. Yusuke thought that he might be happy too. 

After that initial hand-holding, Ren became much more physically touchy with Yusuke. He would put his head on his shoulder when they sat alone together, hold his hand when they went for walks. Yusuke froze up at first, but learned to reciprocate. He found that touching Ren's arm to steady himself in a crowd was grounding. Sitting closer to him, legs touching, provided him with a sense of warmth. Rubbing his thumb over Ren's hand helped him keep his thoughts focused. 

He knew he hadn't had friends before, so he didn't know exactly what to expect, but his connection to Ren felt different than his friendship with the others. He enjoyed being with all of them, and they always had fun together, but this felt somehow different. Deeper. Whatever the case, he was happy with Ren. He felt genuinely cared for and listened to in a way he had never experienced. 

His art began coming back to him in flashes of intense inspiration. He would spend entire days locked away in his studio space, working tirelessly on one piece after another, hoping to create something that he could be proud of once more. He would forgo eating and sleeping, pulled out of his trances only by being nagged by Ren and the others to take breaks to come hang out or get food together. He hated to admit he needed the reminders. 

He had gone into a particularly obsessive episode, not responding to texts or calls for several days, when Ren showed up to his studio uninvited. Yusuke didn’t react the way Ren had expected him to. He had anticipated pleasant surprise at his arrival and minimal resistance at being taken away from his art, culminating in acceptance of an invitation to take a break and spend time together. But instead, Yusuke was irritable at the intrusion on his space and the distraction pulling him away from his work. 

He knew he should be happy to see Ren, happy to spend some time with his dear friend, but he couldn’t push away the feeling that Ren was standing between him and what he needed to be doing. Now he was stuck sitting in front of his canvas, unable to continue working and unable to get up and do what Ren wanted him to do. He hugged his arms across his torso and leaned forward in his seat, rocking steadily, eyes shut tightly. His thoughts felt too loud, pressing in on him from every side, telling him to do too many things and not allowing him to do any. He felt sicker knowing Ren was having to watch him have this tantrum. 

But Ren just pulled a seat over quietly and sat with him, hands clasped in his lap, not touching or talking, just waiting and hoping his presence would be somewhat grounding. 

Yusuke let out a stream of repetitive _sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry_ s, eyes still shut, not adjusting his posture. 

“What can I do?” Ren’s voice was soft. It still felt slightly grating on Yusuke’s ears, just like everything else did right now, but it was less intrusive than he expected it to be. He shrugged in response and shook his head. He couldn’t pinpoint his needs right now. Everything just felt bad. “Have you eaten today?” He thought about it, then shook his head again. “Okay. We don’t have to go anywhere. I’ll bring you food here and we can eat together, okay? You might feel better.” 

Yusuke nodded and looked up at Ren through his hair without raising his head. He expected to see pity, but he only saw a concerned smile. He shut his eyes again, absorbing that image. 

Ren assured him that he would be back and then left to get them both something to eat. The time alone gave Yusuke some time to try and decompress. He felt he would have to scrap the painting he had been working on. Being interrupted prior to its completion threw off his energy and he wasn’t certain he would be able to return to it. It was far from the first time this had happened, but it hurt just the same every time. He felt defective. 

He managed to relax his posture after several minutes and move enough to pull a jacket from his bag to put on. He wasn’t cold, but the added soft pressure helped calm him down sometimes. It seemed to work now. 

When Ren returned, he was still seated in the same place, but looking much less distraught. Now he just looked tired. His fervent rocking from before was replaced by a slow sway, and his hands were folded neatly in his lap, elbows at his sides. Ren came and sat down with him again and handed him a bag. It was his usual order, with something for Ren as well. He inspected his own food thoroughly to ensure it was safe, then began eating. He suddenly realized just how hungry he had been, and became focused on eating his meal in silence. At the very least, eating had provided a distraction.

They both finished their food quietly. Ren didn’t want to say or do anything that might upset Yusuke when he was already in such a delicate state, and he knew that sometimes that meant just sitting together in silence. That was okay. 

Yusuke took a deep breath and reached over to Ren’s lap to take his hand and hold it. He didn’t often initiate contact, but the rarity only made Ren more eager to reciprocate. He rubbed little circles and patterns on Ren’s hand with his thumb. He was surprised, but not in such a bad way this time, when Ren leaned his head over and rested it on his shoulder, humming once quietly. They sat like that for some time, until Yusuke felt calm enough to begin packing his supplies up and returned to his dorm room. 

Ren texted him that night to ensure that he was feeling okay, and to reassure him that it hadn’t been a bother for him to sit with him or bring him food. It was comforting to know that, and for once Yusuke did believe him. It was becoming easier to do that with the repeated experience of Ren not pushing him away at the first sign of abnormality. If Ren could stomach his behavior, then maybe he truly wasn’t so difficult in the first place. He would have to spend some time thinking about that one to assess its validity.

He and Ren slowly moved on from slightly touchy-feely, to full-on physically clingy over the course of several weeks and it culminated in Ren snuggling up to Yusuke’s chest and resting his head there while they watched a movie on Ren’s couch in his room. They were both sleepy and only half focusing on the movie. Ren nearly nodded off like that, kept awake only by Yusuke tentatively bringing a hand up to run through Ren’s hair, playing with the many cowlicks and contemplating the softness of it. Ren made a single low happy noise, reminding Yusuke of a pleased cat being pet in just the right spot. It made him smile and, without thinking, he leaned down and kissed Ren’s head. 

Ren’s eyes opened and flicked upward at the contact, looking surprised. Yusuke was certain he had messed up and he felt his face flush red. He didn’t even know why he had done that, it had just happened without him realizing it. He started to panic.

“Hey,” Ren reached up and grabbed the hand that had been in his hair and pulled it around himself so Yusuke was holding him. He felt Yusuke’s hand tense but then relax and hold onto his side. Ren pressed closer to him and his grip tightened to keep him there. “You’re okay.” 

Yusuke nodded nervously and started to apologize for his actions, but he was cut off by Ren lifting his head and was suddenly faced with the reality of just how close their faces were. He could see every detail of Ren’s long, dark eyelashes, and he had to force his eyes elsewhere. Ren placed a hand along his jaw and stroked along his cheek with his thumb. Slowly, Yusuke relaxed into the touch and shut his eyes, sighing. Ren could feel his body’s tension relaxing against his own. Before he could chicken out, he leaned in closer and kissed him. 

The kiss was soft and slow, but lingered, neither of them wanting to be the first to pull away. Yusuke finally did pull back, eyes half open and expression dazed, and Ren pressed their foreheads together, still holding his jaw. 

“Ren, I apologize for the… perhaps ignorant question, but… are we… do you…” Yusuke couldn’t find the right words anywhere in his brain, which was currently fizzling with static. He looked at a spot past Ren’s shoulder and tried to focus. “Do you… Like me?” He realized how stupid it sounded as soon as he said it, but Ren didn’t laugh. He just pulled back away from him to a normal distance and dropped his hand to hold Yusuke’s instead.

“Of course.” Ren rested his head on Yusuke's shoulder again. 

Yusuke stayed silent and lost in his thoughts. He realized he probably should have worded his question differently, but the correction seemed pointless now. It was likely that Ren meant he liked him in a romantic way. He had just kissed him, after all. They had been holding hands for months. Perhaps he should have realized it sooner, but he had just been happy to have such a close friend at all. It seemed painfully obvious to him in retrospect that friends did not normally hold hands or sit so close to one another or watch movies with one's head resting on the other's chest or shoulder. His social ignorance had bested him once again. 

They were silent, with the movie's credits rolling in the background, until Ren spoke up again. 

“Was that okay?” He tilted his head up to look at Yusuke's face.

“It was alright. The cinematography and color direction left much to be desired, but the overall plot was engaging and quite enjoyable.” Yusuke's eyes were on a spot on the couch, not looking at Ren or the TV, but Ren could tell he was still paying attention. Ren breathed out a quiet laugh.

“I'm glad it wasn't agonizingly boring for you then.” He shut his eyes and snuggled closer, smiling at Yusuke’s misunderstanding. He would just be clearer. “What about the kiss?” 

“Oh.” Yusuke tensed a bit and resumed tracing patterns against Ren's hand. He thought for a moment before answering. “It was… lovely. I truly enjoyed it. But I… I'm so…” he furrowed his brow, trying to find the correct words. “You truly do like me? Not just as a friend? No one put you up to all of this, I presume.” He didn’t think Ren was the type to feign interest on a dare, but it never hurt to be sure. 

“No, no… Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you.” He squeezed Yusuke’s hand reassuringly. “I like you a lot. I know words can be hard, so I’ve been trying to just show you, but I guess I should have said something. Sorry.” 

“But, I’m so... “ Yusuke trailed off again. He was seeming increasingly distraught, which was the opposite of what Ren wanted. Ren sat up properly to be able to look at him more easily, taking in his body language. He looked tense and his expression was pained. He was clearly deep in thought, and Ren didn’t want to interrupt that, but he did want to know what was bothering him. 

“What’s upsetting?” Then it dawned on him and he felt his heart sink. “If you don’t like me back, it’s okay. I’ll still be your friend.” 

“Oh! Oh no, Ren, I… truly adore you.” That made Ren smile and calmed the ache in his chest. “I’m only having trouble understanding your feelings towards myself. I… I’m… Not like other people. In my brain.” He spoke slowly, feeling out every word to make sure it was right, and it still came out sounding clumsy and broken up. “I’m autistic.” Those words came out without him really meaning for them to and he immediately braced himself for the impact of pity, rejection, humiliation. 

He got none of the above.

“Oh. Hmm.” Ren appeared to be thinking. “Thanks for telling me. But if that was supposed to make me not like you anymore, it didn’t work.”

Yusuke made a few frustrated noises in place of words he was still trying to find. He felt like Ren wasn’t understanding the bigger picture. Liking someone like him meant liking all of the ways he could find to be inherently embarrassing or stupid or annoying. He had been shunned his whole life for those things. There wasn’t any way that someone could look at someone like him and see anything else. He took a few deep breaths and finally looked over to Ren, who was patient as ever.

“My apologies. I’m just having a great deal of trouble understanding the situation. You have seen some very embarrassing and shameful things from me as my closest friend, and I cannot understand how you could come away from those things with anything but disgust or annoyance towards me. In many instances, I have found myself wondering how you could even remain my friend, or continue coming back to me again after whatever my latest show of incompetency has been. To be told that you hold romantic interest in me, I… I truly don’t understand it.” He looked back down at his lap. 

Their hands were still clasped together and Ren reached his other hand over to hold Yusuke’s between both of his.

“You are not embarrassing, or shameful, or disgusting, or any other words like that you might have knocking around in that wonderfully talented brain of yours. You’re my friend, firstly, and that means I like you. I like being around you. I like listening to you talk and seeing the way you light up when you talk about something you love. I like that you can find beauty in anything and tell me exactly why. I’m not good at talking about stuff the way you are, so I probably sound like a sappy idiot, but if you need me to tell you exactly why and how I love you, then I will. A thousand million times.” It wasn’t until the words were out of his mouth that he realized he had used the L word and wondered if it was too soon. A glance at Yusuke showed him it must not have been. 

Yusuke was smiling now. Only barely, but it was there, and it was a change from the unhappiness just moments before. 

There was so much praise in those words that it took Yusuke some time to parse all of them and try his best to absorb them despite his brain’s insistent protesting. He opened his mouth a few times to speak, but kept rethinking himself. He began to realize what a long pause he had created in the conversation and glanced at Ren, before dropping his gaze once more.

“You love me.” Was all he managed to say.

Ah, so he had caught that.

“I do.” Ren replied quietly and squeezed Yusuke’s hand between his. 

They fell quiet again.

“Could we kiss again?” Yusuke’s tone was devoid of all embarrassment that most people would have at asking that, and instead full of curiosity. 

Ren laughed and leaned in close to him to kiss him again and again, as many times as he would let him.

His closeness with Ren only seemed to grow from there, and though it was shaky new territory for Yusuke, it generally made him feel happy. Despite the hiccups, he was able to return to a sort of normal routine with his paintings, and create some things that he was happy with. These pieces looked astoundingly different from his previous work, and he felt he only had the light Ren had shone into his life to blame. He had spent so long in the dark, trying to conjure up emotions that he knew he had never truly experienced in order to portray them on canvas. But now he had a glimpse of true, wondrous happiness, and it was showing through in the things he created. 

It wasn’t that Ren had fixed him, or even that his own self-loathing had suddenly been cured by being shown love. It was only the beginning of a slow process of learning that the things he hated about himself, that others had shown him needed to be hated, could be accepted and even loved as necessary parts of himself. 

His obsessive, narrow interests were focused passion. His posture and odd movements were self-expression and communication. His emotional outbursts over small things were sensitivity in a world full of cold, uncaring people. His pervasive existence as himself was bravery. All those broken edges he had convinced himself made him unlovable had only needed to be viewed from another angle for him to realize that what he was looking at was an abstract but vibrant collage, uniquely beautiful, the only one of its kind. 

Learning and internalizing these things was the first step on a journey to unapologetically, unashamedly, authentically being himself. 

And he had Ren to hold his hand the whole way.


End file.
